


To Suffer

by rhythmicroman



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Disfigurement, Drabble, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kinda, Murder, Parent Death, Resurrection, Spoilers for 4x13, Stabbing, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, and "murder", id count "ignoring ur emotions and laughing at everything" as unhealthy, jerome is a horrible person, jerome is referred to as "valeska" and "kid" a lot, kinda a character study but not really, ozzy is also a horrible person, simultaneously the least and most plot-driven thing i've written, theo is referenced but not worth a tag tbfh, they bond, whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 11:58:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13926684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhythmicroman/pseuds/rhythmicroman
Summary: To suffer is to cry in silence, Oswald assumed; and then, there was Valeska.





	To Suffer

**Author's Note:**

> hi so i'm bored and 4x13 gave me Feelings  
> the whole "you have no idea what i've been through" thing w/ ozzy made me think "huh, they react really differently to that stuff", and thus this was born  
> this is definitely the least cringy thing i've ever written for this fandom

To suffer is to cry in silence, Oswald assumed.

Suffering is rejection, and isolation, and being fixed and broken in a continuous spiral; suffering is helplessness, holding the body of the one person who seemed to care, watching another fade from Ed’s eyes; suffering is restraint, and silence, and sitting against the bars of a cell.

He thought his idea of suffering was widely held, but Arkham was full of astoundingly different people, each more eccentric than the last – a man who did nothing but stare, a woman with her hands tied to her waist in restraints, a guard with a cruel, chaotic glint in his eye.

And then, there was Valeska.

Jerome Valeska, barely a kid and barely an adult all at once, cruel smile permanently carved on his pretty face, scars twisting and weaving along his jaw and down his throat. Jerome Valeska, who could turn from calm to chaotic in an instant, who was more than willing to fake tears for what he wanted. Jerome Valeska, who held the less sane guards in the palms of his hands like putty, who leaned too close to whisper, who spoke with a ruined voice and wheezed when he breathed.

Jerome Valeska, who laughed instead of cried.

Oswald didn’t know when he realised they were so different, only that it had happened; back at Valeska’s first death, when he was barely known in Gotham as more than a one-hit-wonder criminal, with his charming smile and sick sense of humour, Oswald had considered them quite alike – he too laughed at others’ pain, and the phrase “one-hit-wonder” had been muttered far too often in his presence.

And he almost admired the kid, until he decided he despised him.

Maybe it was the utter lack of sympathy he displayed, or the insistence that humour was the only way, or the distant look in his eyes when he spoke. Maybe it was the impassive look on his face, or the shameless way he bragged about torture, or the annoying, glass-breaking laugh that he’d never had before. Maybe it was how he stuck his tongue out when he thought hard, or how he took sudden, shuddering gasps of air, or how he treated Oswald like a child.

But whatever it was, Oswald despised it, and despised him _for_ it.

It was only at their third meeting that Oswald realised – it was the _joy_ that Valeska took in everything.

It was horribly unfair; Jerome could be hurt by one parent and betrayed by the other, could be arrested and murdered and brought back to life, could be horribly disfigured and put back together like a puzzle, could be ridiculed and stood on and spited – and yet he always came back with that same obnoxious smile, that same hunger in his wide eyes, that same annoying laugh, as if nothing had happened, as if nothing bothered him at all.

As if it all never happened, as if this was some cartoon show where every episode is disconnected.

But Oswald would remember everything – the cold apathy in Ed’s eyes, the feel of his mother’s limp body, the striking pain of Fish’s beating, the suffocating water of the lake, the taste of his own blood in his mouth, his father’s grave, the pity in a stranger’s eyes – and he’d feel it. He’d hear it in his choked sobs and screams, he’d see it in the darkness of his own eyes, and he’d hate it.

And some days, he saw Valeska hate it too, when his cruel smiles never quite met his eyes, and his hands hesitated before each rough grab, and his voice strained just a little too hard when he spoke.

It was on one of those days that he finally asked, “Why do you laugh so much?”

Jerome had paused, and licked his cracked lips, and looked over from where he was lying on Oswald’s bed. He’d rubbed at the scar on the side of his neck, and hummed with a dry, uneven tune.

“I dunno,” he mumbled finally, voice softer than Oswald had ever heard, “hurts less.”

And Oswald nodded, because _that_ was something he understood.


End file.
